BUFFALO LAKE - Officials with Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement are hopeful the community will have a new school in the near future. Buffalo Lake, located 50 kilometers southwest of Lac La Biche, is the only Métis settlement in Alberta that doesn’t have its own school.
Presently, students in the community who are in kindergarten to Grade 8 are bussed day on a round-trip ride from the settlement area to the Caslan School, a Northern Lights Public School located in the Caslan community outside the Buffalo Lake borders. Students in grades 9-12 take busses from the community to attend high schools in Plamondon or Lac La Biche.
Having a new school in the community, says Stan Delorme, the chairman of the Buffalo Lake Council, not only means that kids will be able to stay in the community without having a long bus ride every day, but they can also receive more instruction in their Métis culture and heritage. Furthermore, he said, the goal would be to have a school and a community centre.
“Culture-wise, we would be able to take part in our traditions within the community culturally and traditionally as well,” he told Lakeland This Week, saying a larger, home-grown building would allow for more activities like Métis fiddling, dancing and tradional language classes. “This is what we want our kids to learn and understand.”
Delorme and members of Buffalo Lake council have met with provincial government officials in a bid to secure funding for a future school. They have also reached out to the NLPS board of trustees for support.
Decades in the making
Although the current push is gaining steam, he said the movement to get a new school has been going on for the past few decades.
“We’ve come close a number of times with different governments in the province,” he said.
A site located on Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement, Delorme explained, has already been selected for the building, with water, sewer, power and fibre optics installed over the past few years.
As for the cost – and where that money will come from, he says estimates from a few years ago were between $20 million and $23 million. The price has gone up a little since that time.
“We’re looking at approximately $25 million,” he said, explaining that community leaders are remaining optimistic that they will be able to secure funding and get the approval processes in place for a new school in the not-so-distant future. At the present time, he explained, Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement is looking at two sources of funding, with half coming from Ottawa and the other half from the province as well as the community’s industry partners.
“I’d like to see it done as soon as we possibly can,” he said.
As for whether a new school in the community would only be for students from K-8 or also include high school students, Delorme says officials are considering different options.
According to information from Northern Lights Public Schools, a new school for Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement is included in the school division’s Capital Plan. This project is prioritized after a replacement school for Vera M. Welsh Elementary School in Lac La Biche has been built, along with a solution that meets the infrastructure needs of the Cold Lake-based schools Art Smith Aviation Academy, North Star Elementary School, and Cold Lake Junior High.
